Television and film cameras have been used in the past for the purpose of surveillance. While many cameras are installed in a fixed or stationary position to continuously view one area, various camera control devices have been developed for panning and tilting camera so a camera can be moved about and aimed toward objects in different directions from the camera's field of view. In many situations it is desirable for a camera to rotate or pan about a vertical axis through arcs up to 360.degree., and possibly tilt about a horizontal axis as much as 90.degree. so that an entire area about the camera can be monitored. Cameras used in these situations are usually for the purpose of monitoring areas where unauthorized activities are likely to occur, such as vandalism or theft in commercial stores, or such as inactivity or theft in manufacturing plants, warehouses, etc. A person likely to be engaged in some illegal or unauthorized activity is also likely to detect the presence of a camera or other monitoring device and move out of the view of the camera before engaging in such activity. When the camera is visible to such a person, the person can move behind the camera or wait for a moving camera to turn away.
In the past some attempt has been made to camouflage cameras which are used for the purpose of monitoring unauthorized or illegal activities. These devices usually comprise a housing placed about a camera with one or several openings in the housing. A camera is mounted in a stationary fashion inside the housing and views through only the one opening. The remaining openings are usually dummy openings. In order to alter the area viewed by the camera, the camera must be reoriented so as to place its lens adjacent another one of the several openings in the housing, or the camera and its housing must be moved in unison. The purpose of multiple lens camera housing was to confuse the onlooker as to which opening the live camera was seeing through. However, the restriction of camera movement as well as the infiltration of dust inside the housing through the housing openings usually were such that the housings were not practical. Also, the design of the housing was unattractive to the onlooker and psychologically undesirable due to the intimidating stare of the camera lens or the openings in the housing. Hence, such housings generally appeared as deterrent devices only and consequently won poor public acceptance. As a result, many of the surveillance cameras are mounted without a camouflage housing under the theory that the exposed movable camera would function as a psychological deterrent to pilferage, theft, inactivity, etc., in spite of the obvious shortcomings of the exposed camera.